As technology continues to advance and the business environments have become increasingly complex and diverse, more and more companies have relied on various customer relationship management (CRM) software and eBusiness applications to conduct and manage various aspects of their enterprise business. In general, eBusiness applications are designed to enable a company or enterprise to conduct its business over an interactive network (e.g., Internet, Intranet, Extranet, etc.) with its customers, partners, suppliers, distributors, employees, etc. eBusiness applications may include core business processes, supply chain, back-office operations, and CRM functions. CRM generally includes various aspects of interaction a company has with its customers, relating to sales and/or services. At a high level, customer relationship management is focused on understanding the customer's needs and leveraging this knowledge to increase sales and improve service. CRM application and software is generally designed to provide effective and efficient interactions between sales and service, and unify a company's activities around the customer in order to increase customer share and customer retention through customer satisfaction.
Typically, CRM implementation strategy needs to consider the following:
Knowledge Management: one of the important factors of an effective CRM implementation is the acquisition of information about a customer, its analysis, sharing and tracking. Also integral to the use of knowledge for competitive advantage is for employees to know what actions to take as a result of this knowledge.
Database Consolidation: another important aspect of an effective and efficient CRM solution is the consolidation of customer information in a single database and the re-engineering of business processes around the customer. The goal here is to have all interactions with a customer recorded in one place to drive production, marketing, sales and customer support activities.
Integration of Channels and Systems: it is very important for a CRM application/software to provide the capability to respond to customers in a consistent and high-quality manner through their channel of choice, whether that is the e-mail, the phone, web-based user interfaces, etc. This may require the seamless integration of various communication channels with the customer or enterprise database. It also may require the integration of CRM with other parts of a company's business systems and applications.
Technology and Infrastructure: to enhance customer services, a CRM application/software may include various tools to automate and streamline online customer service. For example, a self-help model typically can be implemented using a combination of tools (e.g. knowledge bases with an intuitive search capability, agent technology or automated email, etc.).
Generally, eBusiness applications are designed to allow organizations to create a single source of customer information that makes it easier to sell to, market to, and service customers across multiple channels, including the Web, call centers, field, resellers, retail, and dealer networks. Advanced eBusiness applications are typically built on a component-based architecture and are designed to be Web-based and to deliver support for various types of clients on multiple computing platforms including mobile clients, connected clients, thin clients, and handheld clients, etc.
With the recent proliferation of the Web, it is desirable to provide the functionalities of the eBusiness applications in a Web-based environment. Furthermore, it is desirable for the eBusiness applications operating in a Web-based environment to retain the look-and-feel of desktop-based eBusiness applications with which the users are already familiar.